


A Secret She Tried to Keep

by ThatSameSong



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Invasion of Privacy, Slice of Life, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 05:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16320088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatSameSong/pseuds/ThatSameSong
Summary: Pearl is hiding something.  In an attempt to find out what it is, Amethyst and Steven decide to do some unethical snooping.





	A Secret She Tried to Keep

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place roughly between "Letter for Lars" and "Can't Go Back".

Steven was bored.

The Gems were away—Pearl shopping, Garnet meditating somewhere, and Amethyst just gone—so he had the house all to himself for once. The silence was nice for a while, but then it started to grate on him. Steven actually missed going on dangerous missions.

His stomach growling, Steven hopped off the couch. He thought about heading down to the Big Donut and grabbing a dozen. At the very least it would be something for him to do, plus an excuse to check up on Sadie.

He walked over to the fridge. As long as he was checking up on Sadie, he might as well bring her some lunch. He could make sandwiches and they could eat together. At the very least, it would get her mind off Lars. And if Steven was being honest, he also needed to stop thinking about Lars committing intergalactic piracy in space.

Steven opened the fridge and scanned the shelves. There wasn't much—hence Pearl's impromptu shopping trip—but he could make do. Sadie wasn't picky. Humming to himself, Steven reached for a pack of cheese.

“Hey Steven.”

Steven cried out and quickly withdrew his hand. He stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet and falling on his rear. He stared into the open fridge, disbelieving. Steven was positive the voice had come from inside. But how was that even possible?

His question was instantly answered as something caught his eye. There was something small and purple perched on the first shelf, just sitting there next to the cheese. Steven wasn't sure how he'd missed it. Must have been too caught up in the whole Sadie and Lars mess. To be fair, it was partially his fault. Steven could be forgiven for not seeing something right in front of his face. He was a bit distracted.

It was Amethyst, her tiny limbs dangling over the side. She had crumbs and condiments all over her face. So that was where most of their food had gone. He should have known. Steven had just assumed it was Onion again.

“What are you doing in there?” he said.

He clutched at his chest. He wasn't certain his healing powers could have saved him from having a heart attack.

Amethyst reached over and opened the package of cheese. As Steven watched in disbelief and irritation, she grabbed a huge slice from the top of the stack and stuffed the entire thing into her mouth. She swallowed it whole, followed by a loud belch. Graceful as always.

“Just chilling, dude,” she said.

Steven sighed. He stood up, his heartbeat finally returning to normal.

“Can you pass me the jam?” he said.

Amethyst grabbed the almost empty jar and handed it to him.

Steven unscrewed the lid and peered inside. He was relieved to see that there was enough for at least one sandwich. He'd have to make his own without jam, but that was fine. Peanut butter on bread by itself couldn't be that bad, right?

Amethyst swallowed another piece of cheese, then hopped off the shelf and landed on the floor. As Steven walked over to the cupboard, Amethyst grew back to her usual size. She belched again, then shut the fridge with a backwards kick. She then walked into the living room and flopped down on the couch as if nothing had happened.

“Where's P?” she said.

Steven was getting a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard. At least there was still plenty of that left. Amethyst apparently hadn't gotten to the cupboard yet. He answered without turning around.

“Shopping,” he said. _“Someone_ ate all the food.”

Amethyst looked offended.

“Hey, I didn't eat _all_ the food,” she said. “Just the good stuff. I have a _very_ refined palette.”

Steven rolled his eyes. They both remembered the time Amethyst ate an entire tire because Steven said it was probably a bad idea. That had been a very interesting Christmas.

Amethyst closed her eyes, her arms tucked behind her back. She didn't say anything for almost two minutes. Steven thought she'd gone to sleep. It wouldn't have been unlike her. She'd been napping a lot recently. She must have been as stressed out—and unable to deal with it—as everyone else.

As Steven grabbed the last two slices of bread, Amethyst spoke.

“Hey Steven,” she said. “Do you think Pearl is hiding something?”

Shrugging, Steven started spreading jam on a slice of bread. Hiding something? Pearl? Well, he'd always gotten the sense there was something she wasn't telling him, but he'd never said it out loud. It was probably nothing. However, he had a feeling this wasn't what Amethyst meant.

“Not really,” he said.

Amethyst opened her eyes. She sounded kind of troubled, as if this had been on her mind for a while.

“I mean, has she always been like this?” she said. “I know P has her own stuff going on, but isn't she being kind of extra sneaky lately?”

Steven paused, butter knife hovering over the jar of peanut butter. Now that Amethyst brought it up, he _had_ noticed a strange shift in personality from Pearl. Of course he hadn't said anything, but she'd been giving off strange vibes for a week at least. For one thing, she kept disappearing for long periods of time. Pearl had also been excusing herself a lot, usually to answer her phone. When had Pearl gotten so popular?

“Yeah, she has,” said Steven.

He was suddenly concerned. First the Lars thing, now Pearl was acting weird? Steven didn't know what to think. But he had a feeling it was going to take more than a couple of sandwiches to get to the bottom of this.

“You don't think this has something to do with the Diamonds, do you?” he said.

Amethyst abruptly sat up, letting out a frustrated groan.

“I don't know!” she said. “Whatever it is, why can't she just tell us? I thought we were a team.”

Steven dropped the butter knife and rushed to Amethyst's side. He wondered how long she'd been worrying over this. She might have been sitting on this for weeks. Steven couldn't blame her, but he wished she'd said something beforehand.

He gave Amethyst a reassuring smile.

“I'm sure it's nothing bad,” he said. “It's Pearl.”

He sounded so sure of himself that Amethyst actually smiled.

“I still wish I knew what she was hiding,” she said.

Amethyst's eyes lit up, a mischievous smile spreading across her face.

“Wanna go into her room?” she said.

Steven gave Amethyst an annoyed look. He should have known.

“Why can't we just ask her?” he said.

Amethyst crossed her arms and pouted.

“You're no fun,” she said.

She was about to suggest they go into Pearl's room and _then_ ask her, but she stopped. Something had caught her attention. It was lying on the stairs leading up to Steven's bedroom. Amethyst didn't know what it was at first, so she took a few steps closer. When she realized what she was looking at, her entire face lit up.

It was Pearl's phone. What were the chances? Slim, considering how obsessed Pearl was with keeping her stuff in order. But she'd somehow overlooked her phone, even though she'd been keeping a close eye on it. She must have been in a hurry that morning.

“Hey Ste-man,” said Amethyst. “Check it out.”

Before Steven could say anything, Amethyst sprinted over to the stairs and snatched the phone. She held it up, waving it above her head triumphantly. She couldn't believe their luck. They were like detectives.

Steven immediately rushed over and tried to grab it, but Amethyst extended her hand and held it out of his reach. He already felt like he was in trouble, even though nothing had happened yet. He could already hear Pearl's stern lecture. Lectures from Pearl were the worst.

“What are you doing?” said Steven. “We have to give that back!”

Amethyst rolled her eyes, still holding the phone about a foot out of Steven's grasp. Thank the stars for shapeshifting.

“Calm down,” she said. “I'm going to give it back.”

She smirked.

“ _After_ I find out what Perfect Pearl is hiding,” she added.

The phone was already on. All Amethyst had to do was swipe to unlock it. Did Pearl even know how to turn off her phone? Steven wasn't sure he'd covered that in the initial tutorial. He'd mostly taught her how to use emojis and where to plug in the charger. The essentials.

Steven gave up trying to snatch the phone, but he crossed his arms and gave Amethyst a look of disapproval.

“Humans consider that an invasion of privacy,” he said.

Already messing around with the phone, Amethyst shrugged.

“Yeah, so do Gems,” she said.

She started going through Pearl's messages. Pearl had been messaging someone almost non-stop for the past few days. That in itself was bizarre, particularly because she was pretty sure it wasn't Steven. Amethyst had been under the impression that Pearl was still learning, but clearly she'd become an expert when it came to messaging.

“Whoa,” said Amethyst.

Against his better judgment, Steven was curious. Amethyst's tone of voice made it sound as if she'd found something big.

“What?” he said.

Amethyst showed him what she'd found. It was a series of messages from Pearl to an unknown person. There was no name, but Pearl seemed to have been messaging this person for a while. The messages mostly talked about going out for coffee and taking walks together. That explained why Pearl had been sneaking off lately.

“Wow,” said Steven.

Scrolling through the most recent messages, Amethyst frowned in confusion.

“Wait, who is she talking to?” she said.

Steven rubbed his chin and furrowed his brow, giving the question some serious thought. Did Pearl even really know anyone in town? Well, besides Greg and Sadie kind of? She also seemed pretty close with Kiki Pizza, although close by Pearl standards.

“Sadie?” he suggested.

She was the first person who popped into his head. There was no way it was Greg or Kiki. Sadie wasn't more plausible by comparison, but process of elimination.

But Amethyst shook her head, now more puzzled than ever. She was still scrolling through the messages, trying to find some obvious explanation for these increasingly passionate conversations. Pearl was really getting into it. Lots of lovey-dovey language Amethyst wouldn't have expected from someone like her. Amethyst spoke more to herself than to Steven.

“I don't get it,” she said. “Why was she hiding this?”

She paused, eyebrow raised. _Holy crap._ Amethyst let out a small laugh, an amused grin on her face.

“Wow,” she said.

Steven looked confused.

“What?” he said.

Amethyst showed him the message she'd come across.

Steven's cheeks reddened and he immediately covered his eyes. Well, that was going to be burned into his head for awhile. He groaned as Amethyst burst out laughing at his reaction.

“Amethyst, _no,”_ he said. “We have to stop this right now.”

As Amethyst continued to laugh, Steven uncovered his eyes and shook his head. He'd been curious before, but it had finally hit him. It didn't matter that Pearl was hiding stuff from them. It didn't matter that both him and Amethyst wanted to know. This was wrong and there was no getting around it. Seizing his chance, Steven made a grab for the phone.

Amethyst instantly stopped laughing. She backed away from Steven, holding the phone above her head again.

“No way,” she said. “We can't stop now. We're _this_ close. Come on, Steven. Aren't you curious?”

Steven tried to grab the phone again, but she skipped away from him.

“Of course I am,” he said. “But can't you see this is wrong?”

Amethyst had to admit that she felt a little uncomfortable, especially after viewing that last message. But in her opinion, it was too late. They'd reached the point of no return. They'd already seen the bad stuff. Why not stick around until they got answers?

“Then leave,” said Amethyst.

But Steven shook his head. He reached for the phone again, but was again thwarted by Amethyst's shapeshifting powers. He was starting to worry she might drop it, but he refused to give up. He lunged forward again, desperately reaching for the phone.

Laughing, Amethyst extended her arm backwards several feet. Steven was acting as if this was Amethyst's first game of keep-away. They'd done this a dozen times before and Amethyst usually won.

Just as Steven was about to start using his own shapeshifting powers, the front door swung open.

Pearl entered the house with four bags of groceries. She appeared to be in a good mood, a bright smile on her face. But her smile turned to a frown as the door swung shut behind her, her eyes falling on Amethyst and Steven. She froze, her eyebrows raised.

“What are you two doing?” she said.

Steven and Amethyst looked at each other. _Oh crap._ As far as worst case scenarios went, this was definitely up there. Steven felt like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, except a thousand times worse. He knew this could have all been avoided if he'd just left the room when Amethyst grabbed the phone.

Before either of them could say anything, Pearl noticed her phone in Amethyst's hand. Her face filled with surprise and panic.

“Amethyst, what are you doing with that?” she said.

Recovering herself, Amethyst quickly passed the phone to Steven. Well, they were busted. No getting around this. Trying not to look as guilty as she felt, Amethyst put her hands on her hips.

“Don't change the subject,” she said.

Pearl blinked, too caught off guard to react right away.

“Um..,” she said.

But Amethyst didn't let her finish. She crossed her arms, her expression accusatory. She'd been waiting weeks to confront Pearl and nothing was going to get in her way. She could feel the look Steven was giving her. He obviously thought they should just drop it, but Amethyst didn't care.

“We know you're hiding something,” said Amethyst. “Just tell us what it is.”

Steven looked at Amethyst, clearly worried about where this was going. He could sense the tension in the air and he didn't like it.

“Amethyst,” he said pleadingly.

Amethyst paid no attention. If Steven didn't want to hear this, he could leave.

Indignant, Pearl marched across the room and gently took her phone from Steven. The disapproving look she gave him was more than enough punishment. She'd expected this type of behavior from Amethyst, but Steven? This wasn't like him and Pearl was very disappointed.

“I don't know what you mean,” she said. “Really Amethyst, you're being over-dramatic.”

Amethyst spread her arms, her voice shaking with disbelief.

“Oh yeah, because _I'm_ the over-dramatic one, right?” she said. “Can't you stop lying for one second? Just _one second?”_

Pearl glanced from Amethyst to Steven. She obviously wasn't comfortable having this conversation in the first place, let alone in front of Steven. But she didn't have much of a choice.

“It's not important,” she said.

Amethyst snorted.

“Yeah right,” she said. “Then why don't you just tell us?”

She crossed her arms, smiling bitterly. Classic Pearl. Was anyone on their team not keeping some kind of big secret? Well, maybe Garnet. And probably Steven. And Amethyst didn't think she had a lot of secrets to keep. So it was just Pearl who was holding onto something.

“We're supposed to be a team,” said Amethyst. “I thought we agreed to stop hiding things from each other.”

Pearl pressed a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes for a second. Her other arm draped around her waist, she let out a defeated sigh. Then she reopened her eyes and looked at Amethyst and Steven. She noticed the expectant looks on their faces. Even though he hadn't said anything, Pearl could tell Steven was eager for the truth.

“Okay,” said Pearl. “If you really want to know, I guess I have no choice.”

She took a deep breath and clasped her hands together. Apparently all the sneaking around had been for nothing. Then again, it was a relatively small house. It was foolish to believe she could hide anything forever

Pearl stared at Amethyst and Steven for a few seconds, then finally spoke.

“Do you remember that woman we met on the way to see your Krol, Steven?” she said.

Steven stared, even more curious. As if he could have forgotten anything about that night. The actual concert had been the least memorable part of it.

“Of course,” he said. “What about her?”

Pearl blushed, her resolve weakening. But she didn't have to say it.

Amethyst looked surprised. She probably should have guessed, but somehow this was the last thing she'd expected.

“Wait, those messages were from _her?”_ she said.

A wide grin spread across her face. No wonder Pearl didn't want to tell them. She must have known how Amethyst would respond.

“Have you two been _dating?”_ she said.

Pearl waved her hand dismissively, but she was still blushing.

“No, of course not!” she said. “I admit we have been on friendly terms, but we're definitely not _dating.”_

She raised a finger to emphasize her point, folding one arm behind her back.

“We've simply been staying in contact with each other,” she said. “Getting coffee together, going to the movies, buying each other flowers, participating in casual human interaction rituals.”

Amethyst pressed her palm against her forehead, partially amused and partially frustrated.

“That's called _dating,”_ she said.

Pearl waved her hand again.

“Don't be silly,” she said.

Steven glanced from Amethyst to Pearl, uncertain.

“Um, it kind of sounds like dating to me,” he said.

He thought about that last message Amethyst had shown him. He was trying not to think about it, but it definitely didn't sound like casual friendship.

“If you're not dating, why didn't you tell us?” said Amethyst.

Pearl pressed a hand to her face and looked away, closing her eyes.

“Well, I wanted to,” she said. “But I've never been on such _intimate_ terms with another human before. I wasn't sure how you would react.”

She opened her eyes, clenching her fist and letting out a heavy sigh.

“I'm not even sure how I feel about this,” she said. “I never expected to be in a position like this again. Not after Rose. It almost feels wrong.”

Steven immediately spoke up.

“Pearl, it's not wrong,” he said. “You're moving on. It's what Mom would have wanted.”

Pearl turned to look at Steven. That was what she'd been telling herself since the beginning, but it still felt wrong. Every time Rose popped into her head, she was hit with a wave of guilt. A part of her knew Rose would be okay with it even if she was still around, but it was hard to convince herself of that. But looking into Steven's eyes, Pearl began to wonder if she was being foolish by denying such an obvious truth.

“I suppose you're right,” she said. “But is this alright? I know its been years, but... Oh, I don't know.”

Steven gave her a reassuring smile. He knew he couldn't speak for Rose, but he was definitely okay with it. Pearl had seemed much happier lately and now he knew why.

“Mom would want you to be happy,” said Steven.

Pearl looked down at her phone, a small smile on her face.

“You're right,” she said. “This is...”

She clutched her phone tighter. She thought of Rose's smile, all the humans Rose had loved, what Rose had given up to bring Steven into the world. It had once seemed so irrational to her, almost like a silly fantasy. But she was starting to understand it a little more. Why humans pursued these relationships, why Rose had loved humans so much in the first place.

“...exactly what Rose would have wanted,” she finished.

She raised her head and smiled at Amethyst and Steven.

“Can you two keep this a secret?” she said. “I don't think I'm ready to tell Garnet.”

Steven and Amethyst exchanged glances. They were sure Garnet already knew. Upon reflection, they probably should have just tracked down Garnet and asked her. Maybe she wouldn't have told them, but it would have been worth a try.

“Sure, P,” said Amethyst.

She winked.

“Try not to have too much fun,” she said.

Blushing, Pearl grabbed the shopping bags and marched into the kitchen. She was clearly embarrassed, but she was smiling. The conversation had put all of them in higher spirits. Pearl was embarrassed, but she felt better having gotten this off her chest. She didn't have to sneak around anymore or feel ashamed.

Steven raised his hand. Now that it was all over, there was only one thing left to do.

“Let's vow to never invade Pearl's privacy ever again,” he said.

Amethyst stared at Steven's hand for a second, then laughed and walked away.

Sighing, Steven slowly lowered his hand. Well, it was worth a try.

It wasn't like he could worry about it at the moment. He still had to bring Sadie lunch at the Big Donut. Although the whole situation made him feel helpless, Steven was looking forward to talking it over with someone. Maybe he'd go into more detail about what exactly happened on Homeworld. He knew Sadie wasn't entirely satisfied by the answers he'd given her. He'd been holding back because he thought she couldn't handle it, but now Steven was ready to tell her the full story.

Sometimes Steven just had to get things off his chest. No more secrets.


End file.
